


Unspoken

by coveredinfeels



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-22
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-12-05 08:59:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11574762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coveredinfeels/pseuds/coveredinfeels
Summary: That thing where you're sleeping together but manage to pine for each other anyway.





	Unspoken

Really, this shouldn't be happening at all. By rights, there should have been a ballroom or balcony involved at some point of this process. A sunset or sunrise, night-blooming jasmine or a garden of roses, that sort of thing. A look across a room, the glancing touch of fingertips.

Given that Dorian has taken quite some care to avoid all such traps, his present situation seems entirely unfair. 

The entire point, surely, of striking up a torrid affair with a Qunari spy is that one will not be tempted by that which you know to be impossible. You are no longer a child, in love with love and damn the consequences.

_You ask too much,_ Rilienus had said. Not a no, entirely. Biting his lip in the way that said if Dorian pushed hard enough, he'd acquiesce anyway.  
Dorian hadn't asked again.

Ahead of him, Bull whoops again at the now-distant shape of a high dragon, barely visible against the dreary and utterly unromantic clouds blanketing the sky, and Dorian can only scowl affectionately at his back.

You are a fool, Dorian Pavus.

"If we are all done yelling at the sky," he says, "perhaps we could consider making camp before my feet freeze off?"

He would like to say he is not warmed by the smile that is returned to him, by the words he know he invites by his particular choice of complaint. But if he were not such a fool, he would never have found himself in this situation in the first place.

Somehow, he cannot find it in himself to wish he was a wiser man. Be glad, then, perhaps. For this little warmth, for however long it lasts.

* * *

There is this thing he doesn't quite understand. Call it an issue of categorisation, if you will. Here is a Tal-Vashoth. Here are friends of the Tal-Vashoth. Here are working colleagues and fellow soldiers of the Tal-Vashoth. Here are boxes in which he can place each, like so, a mental map of the world.

Here is Dorian Pavus. It is probably not his fault that every time the Tal-Vashoth tries to place him in one of the boxes, it ends up on fire.

Metaphorically. There's only been literal fire that one time. It probably means something that he remembers the event with a kind of fondness.

It's like an ache from some old wound or other, and he didn't even realise the pain was there until Dorian came along to soothe it. _Love_ , they say in the common tongue, but they say it about dogs and pies as well as husbands and wives. Far too unspecific to be useful.

_In love,_ he thinks, one night, when Dorian is away but there's so much of him left in the room Bull feels like he's soaking in his presence.

For some time Bull considers just asking Dorian what they should call this thing. How badly could it go?

Then he actually thinks about how badly it could go. Perhaps he should just be glad he has this, whatever it is. Perhaps he'll wait.

And if Dorian's still about when he figures out what these feelings are, he can talk to him about it then, right?


End file.
